“Thanks for letting me come with you,” Felix said cheerily, and Cascade echoed his trainer’s sentiment. Sonia grunted in response and Zorua snickered from her shoulder. The Pokémon breeder took a shopping basket from a stack before hurrying inside the Celadon department store after Sonia.
“Come on, can’t you at least practice feeling something?” Felix pleaded, falling into step beside her. “Just a little smile, that’s all I ask!”
“No, I really can’t,” Sonia curtly replied.
“How bad could it be, honestly? Just feel a little bit, so you can get used to it!” Felix persisted.
Sonia sighed at a bottle of Super Potion in response. “What part of ‘You’re not psychic, you don’t know how to help me’ do you not understand?”
“Have you even tried?”
“No. And I don’t intend to.”
“Why—”
“Seriously, Felix? Do you honestly think that if it was that simple, I would be having this problem right now? That any psychics, many of whom are desperate to enjoy emotion, still can’t?”
Felix looked at his feet. “Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most likely,” he said sheepishly.
“Right,” Sonia said. “This has already been tried, by the way. If it worked, I would have learned it already. And since I haven’t, it doesn’t work.”
“But what if—”
‘Just. Drop it.” Sonia said through gritted teeth.
Felix tried a different tactic. “Can you talk some sense into her, Zorua?” He said in the fox’s language. “I’m sure this’ll work!”
As if, Zoru, Zorua replied with telepathy. There’s no helping her feel, Zoru! She’d be happier to be left alone, breeder boy.
Felix frowned. Switching to Buizel, he asked Cascade, “You still believe in me, right?”
“What can I say?” Cascade sighed. “If she’s so opposed to it, maybe it’s for the best that we don’t force it on her.”
“Because, well, being happier is better than being sad!” Felix exclaimed. He eyed a package of Oran berries, looking close for signs of mold. Satisfied to have found fresh berries, he tossed it into his basket and continued, “Even if she doesn’t know it yet, joy is the most precious thing a person can experience. I’d be a terrible friend if I didn’t at least try to help her know that.”
“I’m sure we’ll find something,” Cascade promised.
“You can’t,” Sonia called from an aisle over. “Thank you, but this is the happiest I can be.”
“I respectfully disagree,” Felix called back. “Maybe I won’t find it today, but I will find you a solution.”
“Can you just—” Sonia raised her voice, but quickly cut herself off. She walked around the isle to face the breeder. “Felix…” she said, her voice and face neutral. “Why don’t we go up on the roof for a little while?”
“Alright, sure!” Felix chuckled. “Just don’t toss me off, okay?”
Sonia cringed. “Let’s just go.”
She led him and Cascade to the elevator, and pressed the up arrow by the door. A minute of uncomfortable silence passed before the elevator opened, spilling its contents of shoppers as Felix and Sonia waited by the wall. Once the shoppers had left, the two trainers and their Pokémon got into the elevator.
No sooner did the doors shut then Sonia groaned. “Felix, I know you’re trying to help, but you haven’t. At all.”
Felix winced. “I just haven’t found the answer yet—”
“And this whole ‘befriend me to cheer me up’ business is really freaking annoying,” she snapped.
Felix’s heart sank. “I… what?”
“Your optimism is just irritating,” Sonia elaborated. “You always think everything is going to work out, no matter how terrible everything really is. Some problems can’t be solved. Terrible things happen to good people and everybody is miserable because of it, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that. Maybe you haven’t seen it, but I have. I live it, for Arceus’s sake! Let’s say I get sick for a few days and I’m totally bedridden. If I live on my own, far from a Pokémon Center, I might get arrested!”
Felix was shaking his head, wide-eyed. “Why on Earth—”
“Because as a Grade Alpha psychic, missing my government check-in--which is every ten days--even by twenty four hours is punishable with imprisonment. If I’m lucky, it’ll only be for a few months.”
“That’s horrible!” Felix gasped. Cascade wagged his tails nervously.
“But here you are, every day so excited to be my friend, as if that’ll make all of my problems magically go away. So I have to put up with your constant optimism every time you come close, all of your happiness grinding against my attempts to stay neutral; because if I don’t constantly suppress my emotions, I could accidentally kill you. I could even destroy this entire building! Is that what you want?”
“It… no, it isn’t!” Felix replied. “I’m sorry Sonia, I didn’t know—”
“Of course you didn’t. You never thought to ask me, or try to understand why I thought the way I did. You just kept on telling yourself that I was misguided and that I’ll be so much better if I can just learn to feel happy like you. I. Can’t. Understand?”
Felix wasn’t feeling very optimistic at all now. In a quiet voice he asked, “So… do you want me to leave you alone?”
Sonia sighed. “That’s not going to happen. We’re stuck together on this journey, and you don’t plan to leave me be no matter what I say.”
“Then—”
“You can start by calming down. I’m an empath, so all that cheerfulness you direct at me is like you’re constantly screaming in my ear. Second, give up on making me happy. Countless psychics and scientists have tried already, and half of them ended in someone dying. Third—oh my god, are you serious?”
“What?” Felix replied.
“You still want to try?”
“Yes, I really do,” Felix said, gathering his resolve. “It has to be possible. I can’t accept that thousands of people are constantly afraid that if they feel too good, someone might die.”
“That’s just how things are!”
“I know you think that, but… I just have this gut feeling. I know I can figure it out, somehow.”
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Sonia exclaimed. "Or me arrested for life?”
“I’m trying to help thousands of people, first and foremost being you! But you’re probably right in that I can’t… for now. Can we make a compromise? I promise not to try to get you to feel anything you don’t want to. But just… let me find a way! I’ll study, I’ll learn about psychics and psychic Pokémon, and I’ll find out why and how others have failed, and then I’ll discover how to help you and all other psychics.”
“You’re insane, Felix.”
“Insanity would be not doing everything I can to help the people I care about!” Felix retorted. “But I promise I’ll do a better job from now on. What kind of friend do you want, Sonia?”
Sonia sighed and went silent for a few moments. “There are only two people that I really consider to be my friends," she spoke up. "Felix… you’re not one of them. And the way you are, I just can’t see us being friends. You don’t understand what my life is like. And you can’t. Not while you insist that life is so wonderful and everybody can be happy if they just tried.”
The elevator opened to the roof and Sonia walked out. Felix merely stood in the elevator, dumbstruck. “Sonia…I don’t understand. You don’t want to be friends at all?”
Sonia didn’t turn around. “As much as I’d love to, we’re just incompatible. The best way you can be my friend is to just be someone I travel with. Stop trying to help me. Let me do I want to do and feel what I want to feel. You don’t have to ignore me or stay away from me, but just… leave me alone.”
People piled in around Felix, and the doors shut.
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